New show explores Oregon history.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Oregon voters defeated a suffrage referendum five times before finally giving women the right to vote in 1912. Instrumental in the efforts to pass that sixth referendum was Abigail Scott Duniway, a plain-spoken Illinois transplant who overcame enormous odds in her own life and in her efforts as a suffragist. Her story is the focus of the premiere half-hour episode of "Oregon Experience," a series examining the lives of influential figures from the state's history that airs on Oregon Public Broadcasting at 9 p.m. Monday.

Other Oregonians to be profiled in upcoming episodes of the series include the famed horse rancher and conservationist Reub Long, the great supporter of roadways and monuments Sam Hill and University of Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman.

Co-produced by the Oregon Historical Society and OPB, "Oregon Experience" draws from film, video and still-photo archives and relies upon the expertise of historians and researchers from both organizations. The series will explore what it means to be an Oregonian, producers say.

For Duniway, the path to becoming a Northwesterner started on the Oregon Trail. Born and raised on a family farm near Groveland, Ill., she made the trek west in 1852 at the age of 17 and lost both her mother and her youngest brother along the route.

She married a farmer named Benjamin Duniway in 1853. Nine years later, she found herself the sole breadwinner for a family of seven children after her husband suffered a crippling accident. Duniway taught school and oversaw a women's hat shop in Albany, an experience that, she said, opened her eyes to the inequities endured by women.

In 1871, the family moved to Portland, and Duniway began publishing the New Northwest, a newspaper that strongly endorsed equal rights for women. Meanwhile, Duniway's brother, Oregonian newspaper publisher Harvey Scott, was an outspoken opponent of giving women the right to vote.

Duniway used her newspaper as well as her own lectures to campaign for voting rights throughout the region. She even invited famed suffragist Susan B. Anthony on one of her speaking tours. Duniway dealt with injustice and inequality in the 20 novels she wrote and in hundreds of stories, essays and poems, including her own autobiography, "Path Breaking."

She helped women earn the right to vote in Idaho in 1896 and in Washington in 1910. In 1912, she became the first woman in Oregon to vote after securing the victory of a referendum in her own state.

Duniway, who died in 1915, wouldn't live to see the day when all American women could legally vote. But due in a large part to her efforts, the Northwest was ahead of much of the nation, which didn't pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women suffrage until 1920.